


Adrift

by nebulera



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulera/pseuds/nebulera
Summary: Arthur and Clark temporarily lose their powers.





	Adrift

Arthur swims out and beyond the shores of the beach, bypassing the relentless waves with more force than he’d need otherwise. The water is freezing him to death even as much as he tries to ignore it. He swims and swims until his arms grow tired and his body fatigued, because even though swimming for him is like walking for a human, that is simply not the case today. He couldn’t explain with words why he needs to do this even though he knows it will do him no good. That was how much of that curse the League understood at the very least. He understood it in one part of his mind that there’s no point in doing this, but the other part of his ridiculous brain couldn’t stand the silent wall between him and the ocean.

He takes a deep breath and dives down.

Opening his eyes underwater is like a chore. It burns and everything comes out blurry. It’s almost completely dark, not only because the sun is setting, but because absolutely nothing comes clear to him. It’s like he’s descending into a bottomless nothing that’s consuming him whole. And it scares Arthur how much it frightens him. When he tries to take a breath he fails miserably. Water fills his mouth and nose in an uncomfortable and unnatural way, and he coughs, his body going rigid. His chest depletes and grows inexplicably tight. He can’t breath, he’s choking. For the first time since he discovered his powers and the wonders of the sea, he wishes he could leave, his only instinct being to reach the surface.

As a last resort, he tries to reach out to any marine life he can. He’s met with utter silence.

He doesn’t get a chance to do anything more. An arm snakes under his arm and around his chest tightly, pulling him protectively against them before kicking upwards. The dark, uncomfortable depths seem to get further and further away as he’s propelled up. Once met with the surface, Arthur gasps for breath, his arms flailing outwards and reaching for anything to grab onto, moving him away from whoever came for him, who is equally breathless behind him.

Then those hands grip his shoulders and force him back around. Clark’s hands are shaking, his eyes a flaming mixture of anger and worry.

“Jesus,” Arthur says, a shuddering mess.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Clark practically yells, still gasping for air.

“I didn’t,” Arthur answers. “What are you doing out here?” He’d thought Clark was still at the lighthouse where he left him. Clark had been reading in the living room, Arthur sitting with his legs across his lap before he left through the front door without a word. Perhaps that was his first mistake, not telling Clark what he was doing and why.

“Making sure you’re not accidentally killing yourself.”

Arthur shakes his head, trying to suppress the anger spiking at his chest. Unbelievable. “You don’t think I would — ”

“I don’t know what to think, Arthur! You’re not the only person going through this, I couldn’t see or hear you at all. Christ, it’s freezing, let’s get back.” Clark then proceeds to try to swim back while still holding Arthur and for a split second it’s absolutely humiliating to him. He forgets almost all reason because he’s cold and exhausted. He’s in his own element and he doesn’t need to be dragged along like a child.

He doesn’t think at all as his anger bottles up. He shakes himself from Clark’s hands and pushes him away. “I can get back on my own.”

Clark grabs his wrist before he can try. His full strength isn’t there, like Arthur’s, but he still doesn’t try to pull away. His eyes flare with a subdued anger, his mouth in a set line. “Don’t.”

Arthur looks down, an apology on the tip of his tongue, only Clark is already dropping his wrist and looking away from him.

The freezing waves are beating against them, and their utterly human bodies are wracked with the need to find warmth. So, he takes a deep breath and dives under, swimming back, having to come up for air every so often. Clark is right behind him.

The curse wouldn’t last that long, said the alien magician who simply waved his fingers and just like that, their powers were gone. Only fifteen hours he said. For Kyle, his ring was completely depowered and rendered a useless block. Barry lost his speed. J’onn could no longer shape-shift or read their minds, and like Clark and Diana, had lost his strength and flight. As for Arthur, he’d lost his strength and telepathy as well as any biological aspect of him in regards to the ocean. He couldn’t breathe or speak underwater, he couldn’t withstand the deep pressures. Being in the ocean made him as vulnerable as a human.

And he can’t stand it. The silence of the ocean he’s being forced to bear terrifies him. He’s trapped in his own head.

Once he gets to the shore, Arthur sinks to his knees, hangs his head, and lets the tide wash against his legs. He’s completely exhausted, his head hurts, and he wraps his arms around himself to protect from the cold air making contact with his wet skin. He’s shivering as he blinks back tears.

Clark’s hand gently touches his shoulder. “Arthur.” He’s shaking, too.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur gasps. He covers his eyes with one of his hands. “For pushing you.”

“I know,” Clark says. He’s on his knees beside Arthur, one of his hands is stroking the nape of Arthur’s neck, twirling his hair.

“I can’t hear them anymore. They can’t hear me.” Arthur peers over his hand to look at the tall grass coming out of the sand on a hill waving from the wind as he hears the tide slide against them. His vision goes blurry again and he shields his eyes once more as they dampen. “I had to feel it for myself. It was driving me mad, I’m sorry.”

“I understand, I do,” Clark says. “That’s why you scared me. I couldn’t...feel you anymore.” Arthur knows what he means when he feels his hand reaching over his heart, silent against his chest, rather than thundering loud for Clark.

“Let’s get inside. It’s cold.”

Arthur nods and turns to face him. He still can’t meet his eyes. It’s all still too quiet for him, even with his breath beating against the wind. “I felt like I was alone.”

“Arthur,” Clark crooks a finger under his chin to raise it gently, and Arthur finally looks up. “You’re never alone.”

 

…

 

When they get back to the lighthouse, he and Clark remove their wet clothes and sit with a towel thrown over their respective shoulders. They wait until the shaking stops and their teeth stop chattering. Their hands are twined together between them.

Arthur looks over at Clark who is equally as exhausted as him. His damp hair is thrown to one side, his eyes are tired. He looks so utterly human. The most powerful person on the planet. The strongest person he knows.

“What is it like for you?” Arthur asks, still feeling horrible for not completely realizing their depowering is affecting Clark as well.

Clark picks up Arthur’s hand and examines it, rubbing his thumb against his knuckles. “I’ve controlled my strength and my hearing for so long. It feels strange to know I don’t have to right now.” He shakes his head. “It’s like years and years of tiptoeing around something instead of walking head-on, because if I do, something breaks, or someone gets hurt. But I lived with it. Now it’s completely gone.”

“How can you stand it?”

“I can’t. I can’t fly or get places fast enough. I can’t hear your heartbeat, or my mother’s.”

Arthur grasps Clark’s hand, kisses it, and wordlessly presses it against his chest, right over where his heart would be.

Clark chuckles, runs his thumb over Arthur’s skin. “It’s not the same.”

Arthur leans down and curls into Clark’s neck. He tries to block it out, but even now the disconnect between him and the ocean causes his stomach to turn. It was like a constant in his life that he’d taken for granted, but now it’s like a void in his chest. “I hate this.”

“It’ll pass soon,” Clark says. “Everything should be good to go by morning.” He tilts Arthur’s head up and presses his forehead against his. “Please don’t be scared. I love you.” Even without his super hearing and heightened senses, he knows what Arthur is feeling. He always does.

“I love you, too. I’m not scared anymore, but...just stay with me.”

“Where else would I be?”

Arthur kisses him softly and Clark responds a little furiously by gripping the back of his head. Their hands on each other are more frantic than usual, but then as the minutes pass they regress to soft touches and slow kissing. Without saying a word they slowly migrate to the bedroom, letting the towels fall to the ground.

He’s the one who ends up falling backwards onto the bed with Clark on top, who kisses his eyelids, then his cheeks, his neck. “This is new,” he says. They’re only ever done this with their powers, and now thinking about it he realizes they almost always use their powers in bed. Well, Clark mostly. Clark’s strength being just enough for Arthur when he needed it, Clark flying them to the wall and/or ceiling.

“What if we,” Arthur says before flipping them over so he was above Clark, “did this. I bet it’s more intense for you.”

“Hmpf,” Clark replies, looking extremely interested in Arthur’s positive mood change. Arthur presses his wrists down against the bed, and when Clark tries to push back against him, likely trying to get back on top, his eyes fly open upon realizing he can’t. Arthur — he — without their powers, he’s _stronger_ than —

His eyes flare up at Arthur and then he’s smiling, relaxing completely under him. “Okay, you win.”

“Uh-huh,” Arthur says with a smirk before kissing Clark again and again, never stopping until the night is over, the curse and the rest of the world be damned.

That night, Clark sleeps with his head resting against his chest where he could feel Arthur’s heart beating.

 

…

 

Clark wakes up and he’s alone.

Only he refutes that immediately because Arthur is just down a ways on the beach.

And he could only know that if he had back his super hearing.

Clark throws on some of Arthur’s clothes before stepping outside, and upon taking on the early morning sunrise, he feels regenerated and whole. Finally, he thinks. Last night he’d only touched the surface with Arthur when telling him about how the past fifteen hours made him feel. Losing his powers hadn’t made him feel less than, no, but being detached from the sound of the world felt like being completely isolated in his own head. Worse, he was theoretically helpless in a scenario that needed his strength, his senses. And not being able to hear the ongoing sound of his Arthur’s heartbeat only made his stomach drop in complete horror when he’d disappeared on him last night.

Clark flies down to the beach once he sees Arthur, touching down quietly behind him. He’s sitting with his arms resting on his bent knees as he stares out at the ocean. Clark sits next to him, throws an arm over his shoulders. Arthur hums. He is noticeably not wet.

“You haven’t been out there yet?” Clark asks.

“Not yet,” Arthur says. He smiles softly, blue eyes glowing in a familiar wonder Clark had missed. “I can hear them.” He reaches up to grasp Clark’s hand on his shoulder.

The tide rises and meets them with a gentle ease.

Without another thought, Clark tunes into Arthur’s heartbeat, and the relaxed thudding is enough to put his mind to rest.

“I can hear you,” Clark says, quietly.

They sit in that irrevocable silence and watch the sun rise against the endless waves of the sea.

**Author's Note:**

> [the soundtrack for this fic](https://youtu.be/exRdlQ143l4)  
>  
> 
> yay or nay


End file.
